That famed film director Guillermo del Toro sat on Hellboy for nearly seven years waiting to convince studio execs to hire the then relative unknown Ron Perlman is probably all you need to know about the gruff actor's talents. "Guillermo just got it in his head that only one guy should play the part," Perlman explains over the phone from Los Angeles. "It just so happened that it was me, and he stuck to his guns. And Toro means bull, for whatever that's worth." Perlman helped turn the obscure comic hero into a blockbuster franchise, and turned himself from a character actor into a household name, leading to starring roles in FX's gritty Sons of Anarchy, this summer's Pacific Rim (again with del Toro), and as a detective hunting a crime-scene photographer turned vigilante in the upcoming psychological thriller Crave, out in theatres and on VOD this weekend. We caught up with Perlman to discuss the film and ended up having a pretty intense discussion about vigilantes. Spoiler alert: He hates George Zimmerman.

ESQUIRE.COM: So let's start with vigilantism. There's this slightly clichéd anecdote you tell in Crave, the one about the good wolf and the bad wolf and the stronger one is whichever you feed. I've heard it a hundred times, and it's usually white noise, but when you tell it I feel the need to shit myself. Where does your demented delivery come from?

RON PERLMAN: Well, the fun of that movie for me was the relationship between Pete and Aiden, because they're both damaged, and they're both in chosen professions in which they're trying to bring order to the chaos. So they entertain one another with this gallows humor that you very often see in these high-pressure situations. Soldiers do it. Cops do it. Any time there's a lot of pressure, it's life and death, you go toward this very dark kind of humor.

RP: Yeah, at that moment in the diner when he's desperately trying to tell me how seriously he's flipping out and how scared he is of what direction he's going in, and I turn it into a moment of levity. I take a big cliché and say, "Dude, there ain't nothing to be serious about in this fking life. And anyone who tells you any differently is pulling your chain."

ESQ: It certainly doesn't come off as good-natured ribbing.

RP: Well it's kind of like a parable, right? There is a lesson to be learned in that story, but my character's philosophy is you kind of throw it away and say that even the most grave lesson you're going to learn still shouldn't be taken too seriously. You just have to figure out a way to get through the day and that's it. Don't make too much of it and don't make too little of it. And my affection for Aiden is that he's so flawed and I see so much of myself in him. He's so vulnerable that he's holding on by his fingernails. He reminds me of me, so in taking care of him I'm taking care of myself at the same time.

ESQ: Does Pete, and I guess do you, want Aiden to succeed?

RP: I think there's recognition that, sure, it would be great if we could take care of these people ourselves. But we're not God. We're humans, and at the end of the day we have to march to the beat of a certain kind of drum. And if you step outside too far into thinking you're some sort of deity that can transcend law and order, then you've crossed a line. And as a cop, you try to remember that.

ESQ: Were you around when subway vigilante Bernhard Goetz was running around New York?

RP: Yeah. I mean, he's why we love the Death Wish movies. The Charlie Bronson... you know, what's it called when there's more than one?

ESQ: Sequels?

RP: Yeah, franchise. There's a major part of all of us that wants the bad guys to meet justice, and quickly. But there's a major part of all of us that is very frustrated that justice sometimes fks up. I mean look at George fking Zimmerman still fking walking around, man. What the fk is up with that?

ESQ: Yeah, but some people see him as the hero. Maybe not me or you, but...

RP: That's the problem. For everyone like you and me, there's another guy who says, "No. No, you're wrong. He's right." So we're stuck with this flawed, horrible, slow-moving, over-burdened justice system that's only right part of the time. But if you cross the line and decide, "Well this guy is dirty as fk and I'm just going to take him out right now." Then where do you stop? Where does it end? And that question has been tackled in movies since the beginning. Jimmy Cagney tackled this shit.

ESQ: And for as much as Batman is a celebrated vigilante, he's arguably a sociopath.

RP: And you can spin things any way you want, really. You can create a world that justifies it. Look at the fking show I'm on, Sons of Anarchy. We're the most reprehensible band of fking criminals in the world. We're into pornography, we sell guns that ultimately end up getting kids killed in school, but we're the heroes in that show because of the way the world is set up. But there's a point where the rubber actually meets the road and you have to know the difference between reality and fantasy. That's what I like about Crave. It's an exploration of someone who has a really good idea, but the mistake is that he acts on it.

ESQ: Do you ever struggle with playing these dark characters?

RP: No. Once I decide to take on a role it's because I find that guy to be really interesting to watch and very compelling to play. And from that point on I can no longer judge him. I can only take on his point of view in order to play him effectively. And his point of view is often not mine. It's well–chronicled that Kurt Sutter and I went down divergent paths with Clay Morrow for Sons of Anarchy. Kurt had him doing things that I found really difficult to play, but he wasn't my character. He was Kurt's, so I was obliged to do it. And not only do it, but to find a way that made you believe that I believed it, because that's what they're paying me for.

ESQ: How much of Ron Perlman bleeds into each of these characters?

RP: What I find fascinating about this job is that I've actively chosen to delve into the human condition. And I go by the premise that each of us is capable of anything. What we're going to do or not do is a product of how we've been socialized and what our experiences were in life. If someone comes into your house and does fked-up things to your kids and your wife, you're going to be capable of things you never imagined. Because it's in there. It might be lying dormant, but it's there.

ESQ: Playing these roles doesn't bring those things lying dormant to the surface?

RP: Well, as an actor, I try to marry whatever's in there, whether I actively use it in my own life or not, with whatever I'm being asked to play in the script. And the better you're able to marry something that's truly real inside you, even though you don't often access it, the more effective the performance will be. "Holy shit, you are that guy." Well that's what they pay us to do. And I like exploring extreme behavior. It's much more interesting than exploring boring guys. Workaday guys.

ESQ: You never wanted to play the dopey guy in the romantic comedy, just to see if you could?

RP: Nah, I don't think I'd be any good at it really, unless he had some sort of strange behavioral tick. And Will Ferrell gets all those roles anyway, so I don't even have to worry about it.

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